Digital video has become widespread and commonplace. However, some problems with digital video technology still remain. A persistent problem relates to the sheer size of video presentations.
To reduce the size of video presentations, frames of a video presentation are typically stored in an encoded format. The encoded format can do much to reduce the amount of resources required to store the video presentation. However, when the video is to be presented, it must be decoded by a video decoder (sometimes called a “codec”). The video decoder can be very complicated and resource-intensive software. Accordingly, when playing video, demands on the digital video player can be severe.
In some cases, decoding overloads the digital video player, leading to defects in the video presentation. For example, the presentation may freeze, or the number of frames presented per second may drop to a level that leads to a poor quality presentation.
Unfortunately, even a minor amount of defect in a video presentation is not very well tolerated by the average viewer. Viewers are accustomed to watching thousands of hours of video over a life time that have no or almost no defects. Thus, avoiding such defects is an important part of developing the decoders. Accordingly, the decoders must be thoroughly tested.
One possible technique for assuring video quality is to have a human tester watch video presentations and rate them manually. However, such an approach requires a human tester to attentively watch a lengthy video presentation that may have only a handful of defects.
Accordingly, there exists a need for improved video presentation performance evaluation.